Many ideas about Armageddon can be found in literature and movies. But what does the Bible say about Armageddon?
You may be surprised to hear that Armageddon is not an event—it’s a place. The Bible mentions Armageddon only once, in Revelation 16:16: “And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.” The word Armageddon comes from two Hebrew words: Har Megiddo, meaning “the hill of Megiddo.” The common (but misleading) notion is that Armageddon will be the last, climactic battle to be fought on earth between the powers of good and evil. However, this is not quite right in several crucial respects. Armageddon—or more likely the large broad Valley of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, which Megiddo overlooks—will in fact be the staging area for the final great battle of this age, but not the site of the battle itself. That is set not at Megiddo but in the Valley of Jehoshaphat—commonly reckoned to be the Kidron Valley, immediately adjacent to Jerusalem (see Joel 3:2, 9-16). Notwithstanding the popular concept of the Battle of Armageddon, the Bible makes no specific prediction for a war
